Week 13 - Push and Pull (Mostly Pull)

It's time to start thinking about how to improve push / pull, and also, decide what to do about AI reviews now that I have experience with NAGA.

This Week

OSRS released a new Deadman league. I decided to give it a shot and got sucked in. It's okay, going dry on drops is also a form of injustice tilt training.

Let's talk about AI again. I touched on it a bit in the last post, but I've been using NAGA on Tenhou for game analysis. I think it is very obviously stronger than Maka.

While playing on Mahjong Soul, I developed a habit of following Maka's initial discard order, to pad out my grades. But, NAGA's initial discard order is very different. Now I have to relearn those habits.

For example, let's take the simplest thing, the dragon discard order. Maka uses the mathematically optimal order, cutting green when all three are equal, and otherwise cutting the one that has the best chance of becoming dora first. In NAGA, Kagashi cuts white first, then red, then green, and it considers this a 100-0 decision. It doesn't matter if your hand is green-white or red-white, it will cut the white in both.

The other types have their own preferences for the dragons, split between white->red->green and green->white->red, but they usually at least tolerate the other choice. According to the book, a bad move mark is when you choose something that's under a 5%. So, doing a different order from Kagashi gives you a "bad move" mark.

There are lots of differences like this between NAGA and Maka. Maka will suggest a guest wind over the 1 in a 14, while NAGA will very strongly suggest the 1. Maka cuts all once-cut yakuhai before all yakuhai, while NAGA will keep a once-cut self wind over other yakuhai. Lots of habits to relearn.

In the end, Kagashi is the one I like best... most of the time. I like honitsu more than Kagashi does. If there's a time I go for honitsu while Kagashi does not, Omega is often advocating for honitsu. In terms of going for value, Omega is more like me, but the early round discards I'm much closer to Kagashi. Sometimes I don't even understand the reasoning behind Omega's suggestions.

Now, I've been doing a sort of wibbly review method. Reviewing with two types is the same cost as one type, then each type after that increases the cost by 10%. I run the replays with Omega, Kagashi, and one other (Gamma or Nishiki depending on my mood), then if any of them agrees with me, I don't mark it as a mistake. It's basically just a stylistic decision. Only if I choose something no snake wants do I call it a mistake.

But, is that correct? Does a patchwork playstyle work? Do Kagashi's choices only work out when you follow up in the same way it does? Kagashi has 10-dan strength, but does Kagashi with more honitsu also have 10-dan strength? Or does that make it weaker? It's hard to say. Do the decisions of the snakes matter when you're in a position they would never put themselves into? Hibakari gives some strange discards post-call due to its dislike of calling, for example. They might even have less experience in those situations.

I think if I make a call that only Kagashi wants, I'll only consider Kagashi's opinions from then on. In those situations, Kagashi will be the only one who views it as a "good position," while the others will be seeing it as a "bad position" they have to account for. Maybe? All the NAGA versions have 10-dan strength, so if you play like one in some rounds and another in other rounds, it probably works out, but switching between them mid-round might be bad.

And I make a lot of calls that only Kagashi agrees with.

You're the only one who understands me...

Next Week

Let's start getting into the push / pull improvements. These are the things I think I need to work on:

1. Basic rule adherence
2. Folding against open hands
3. Positional play

I was actually planning on having sakigiri be in here, but in all the NAGA reviews, they basically never suggest it. When they do, it's just floating tiles. I'll write it off as unimportant for now.

It's a little hard to say which of these is most important. Basic rule adherence sounds important, but you can certainly get to Houou with a "tenpai = push, non-tenpai = fold" mindset. Going for optimal EV decisions would be a lot to think about.

Folding against open hands sounds important, but it's more important the stronger your opponents are. Against weak opponents who do bad calls, the value in folding against them goes down. It's a good habit to get into, but translates less into results.

I think positional play is actually the most impactful currently. This involves not picking meaningless fights, and focusing more on fourth place avoidance. I'll try to play like I'm in Houou and fourths are very painful, then follow the various rules laid out in the doc's Point Situation section.